


Countdown

by endofunctor



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-26
Updated: 2011-10-26
Packaged: 2017-10-24 23:31:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/269127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endofunctor/pseuds/endofunctor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What would a pair of 13-year-old pseudo-siblings do if they had less than two minutes left?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Countdown

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by [redibis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redibis/pseuds/redibis). Log in to view. 



This is how it ends, two purple-clothed dreamers facing an explosion so large that they never see it coming.

* * *

Ninety-four. Ninety-three. Ninety-two. Ninety-one.

TG: heres a joke   
TG: a girl comes up with a plan to save the universe that involves blowing up a massive sun with a bomb with her inside it   
TG: and expects everybody to think this is the best idea ever   
TT: I think I know this one.   
TT: Is the punchline that her clone brother gets knocked out with a ball of yarn?

The timer ticks down and down towards zero, and Dave can feel the seconds drag on and on. He’s out of his element here in this realm beyond space and time, where everything and nothing happens at once. He’s keeping up their verbal fencing match because it gives him something to do, to distract him from how the seconds are passing by with both agonizing slowness and terrifying speed. She won this round, not only deftly blocking his inquiry but circling back on himself.

TG: you really didnt have to go along with the tumor you know   
TG: you couldve stayed behind and gone with the john and jade   
TG: lived out the rest of your life as the biggest stereotype ever   
TG: a grimdark seer named after a plant who im pretty sure is a gigantic goddamn lesbian   
TT: But then I would have had to miss out on this absolutely scintillating conversation.   
TT: And my hypothetical Sapphic inclinations are certainly none of your business.   
TT: Shall I resume my analysis of your fondness for phallic metaphor?   
TG: no im good

  
He was never meant to be anything, never meant to be a hero, much less the Hero of Time. He was always playing second, to Bro or John or even Jade. Even his alternate self with full knowledge of the game couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop --- and here his train of thought abruptly jumps the rails and only narrowly manages to avoid plowing through a family of eight along the way.

Fifty-seven. Fifty-six. Fifty-five. Fifty-four.

He wonders if she knows what he’s thinking. No. He knows she does, because even though he’s the one that wears the shades they might as well be transparent to her. And when he looks in her eyes, he actually sees her for the first time, the fraud behind the Freud, the young Jungian-in-training with all her theories and Todestrieb stripped bare. He sees in her face the fear of a child playing at a game not meant to be played, and she sees in his the uncertainty of a boy who was forced to become a man all too soon.

Twenty. Nineteen.

TG: hey rose   
TT: What is it, Dave?   
TG: im scared

Eleven. Ten. Nine. Eight.

She reaches her hand out to take his, and together they give what passes for a smile among the Derse siblings.

TT: So am I.

As last words go, they could be better.

Two. One.

* * *

This is how it begins, two gods clad in red and orange, so small that they can change everything.


End file.
